(My ancestors, the Lawsons,
leaving Missouri to move West in about 1908,the lady near the middle
in white is my Grandmother, Laura Lawson)

Missouri,
Where The Trails Began

Imagine
what it would have been like to be a pioneer in America in the
mid-1800s and working your way westward in a covered wagon. Missouri
was where the trails began and Independence became known as
“The Queen City of The Trails”, because all of the trails west could
be accessed from there.

Covered
wagons carried mainly tools, food, and supplies. If a wagon was
too heavily loaded, the oxen, or mules could not handle the load when
it came to the steep pulls. It was said that you didn’t have to
venture far out of Independence to find the trail strewn with items that
had been left behind to lighten the load.

Once
the pioneers crossed the Missouri River, they left civilization
behind them and began their journey on what
became known as The Oregon Trail.

Perhaps,
the journey began something like this:

A
Future and A Hope

“Heard
some news in town today”, Papa began cautiously as he
sat down with his family around the kitchen table. “Your
Momma and I been talkin’ bout it for a spell,” he said as he
glanced Momma’s way and then buttered a piece of cornbread. “I
know this kind o’ thing is hard to get a handle on for you youngins but
it just might be our big chance to make a new life. You know howwe
been wantin’ to buy us some land of our own to farm but just
can’t seem to get ahead… an’ all we’re ever gonna have here where
we are now is just gittin’ by or workin’ for somebody else with
no hope for a future.”

Papa’s
voice began to rise as he continued, “And I’ll be switched if I’m gonna
keep on workin’ for nothin’ when there’s a chance for somethin’ better.”We
all knew what Papa was talking about, at least those of us old enough to
understand. I’d heard about it down at the school but I never thought about
it having anything to do with us. I guess I should have thought about
itbecause
Papa was a dreamer, so Momma said, and he didn’t hold much with
depending on or working for anyone else.

“Now,
they’re a sayin’ that there’s this land to be had out in
the Oregon Country and it’s there for the takin’. A man and his
wife can have a square mile of land apiece…that’s 640 acres bymy
figurin’ and that would be something a man could sink a plow into for
sure.” Papa continued.

I
glanced around the table at the other children who were intently watching Papa
and waiting for what he would say next. Benjamin and Paul both
looked excited but that was because they were the oldest and
they were twins. They were always excited about anything to do with
Papa because they looked up to him and wanted to be just like him. It
was all just a big adventure to them.

Mary
Elizabeth was pushing her food around on her plate and not eating a bite.

My
little sister, Sarah, was sitting next to me at the table. She
was clutching her rag doll that Momma had made her and looking kind
of scared.

Papa
paused to dip another helping of Momma’s stew when four
year old Sarah touched my shoulder, “Becca”, she whispered, “Can
Stray go wif us too?”

“Shush
Sarah, Papa is talking! We’ll ask Papa later about Stray.”

Stray
was a little yellow dog that showed up at the barn one day, looking
as if he hadn’t eaten for days. Papa pretended not to like the dog but
Rebecca had seen him pat him on the head and feed him scraps when
he thought nobody was watching. When little Sarah had come out to
the barn one day, she spied the dog and asked his name. Papa
said, “He’s a stray.” Sarah began petting him, saying,
“Hello, Stray”. The
dog seemed to answer her as he wagged his tail and
licked her hand, and the name had stuck.

Sarah
turned back to her plate, as she decided to obey Rebecca, but
stuck out her lower lip and slipped a pinch of the cornbread under
the table to Stray who was forever at Sarah’s feet.

About
that time my baby brother began to cry. Momma picked him upfrom
the little wooden crate Papa had worked over into a fine baby
cradle that would even rock. He was just three weeks old and
hadn’t been named yet. Momma wanted to name him from the Bible like
the rest of us but Papa was holding off because he thought none
of the names Momma mentioned seemed to fit the little guy.

“It’s
1842 now”, Papa said emphatically as he took up his conversation again. “Things
have changed some and they say the trip across the land is easier now. Since
the Whitmans went out in ’36, lots more folks are going… women and
children too. Why they say that Oregon is so fertile and the weather so
fine that a man can grow a cabbage as big as a wagon wheel!” Papa
looked straight at us children and laughed excitedly as
he motioned with his hands as to the size of the cabbage.

“James
Zachary!” Momma scolded, “Don’t you be storying to the children.”

“Now
Martha, what I’m telling is for sure a fact. Well… maybe not quite
as big as wagon wheels but almost!” Papa conceded grudgingly,

Papa’s
face turned serious again as he looked at Momma, “Martha,
I hear there’s a lot of wagons headin’ out next spring and we’d
have no trouble makin’ it to Independence by then. We’re
not that far away, already bein’ here in Missouri. We’re a far
sight closer than those already tryin’ to get out here from way
back east. We got the farm wagon and if we sell what we can here, we’d
have enough to buy us supplies and maybe even another wagon or two.”

I
knew from the way Papa was talking that his mind was settled. He
was actually going
to do it. We were really going out to the Oregon Country.

ByPamela Perry Blainecopyright, March
2004

"No
other race of men with the means at their command would undertake so
great a journey, none save these could successfully perform it, with
no previous preparation, relying only on the fertility of their own invention to
devise the means to overcome each danger and difficulty as it arose. They
have undertaken to perform with slow-moving oxen a journey of two
thousand miles. The way lies over trackless wastes, wide and deep rivers, ragged
and lofty mountains and is beset with hostile savages." *Jesse
Applegate 1843

*Jesse
Applegate was a pioneer who crossed the Oregon Trail in 1843, and
later helped establish the Applegate Trail in an effort to find a
safer route after his nine year old son drowned while crossing the Snake
River.

For
I know the thoughts that I think toward you, says the Lord, thoughts
of peace and not of evil, to
give you a future and a hope.Jeremiah
29:11